


Strange

by AriadneKnowsTheWay



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluffy Ending, Naruko is not Naruto, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26976103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AriadneKnowsTheWay/pseuds/AriadneKnowsTheWay
Summary: The night in Tokyo is always cold.Naruko doesn’t know if it’s because it’s winter, or because after a week of blindingly cloudless sun the night must be cold, as if to remind everyone that the heat of the day is a prize, a kind of concession given by some unknown deity.
Relationships: Nara Shikamaru/Uzumaki Naruto (implied), Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruko
Kudos: 8





	Strange

**Author's Note:**

> Every grammatical error is mine, unfortunately. I'm in deep need of a beta and it shows.

The night in Tokyo is always cold.  
  
Naruko doesn’t know if it’s because it’s winter, or because after a week of blindingly cloudless sun the night must be cold, as if to remind everyone that the heat of the day is a prize, a kind of concession given by some unknown deity.  
  
  
She shivers in her shriveled yellow ochre short-sleeved t-shirt, lets her skin be attacked by that stinging air.  
  
On the terrace of her apartment, leaning elbow to the balustrade, she thinks of nothing special. Only that it’s a beautiful night, as beautiful as it can be. She doesn’t like it, all that darkness at once, all those cold, distant stars, the moon even further away.  
  
She feels the glass door behind her sliding on the hinges, a thread of smoke grazes the back of her neck, and it gets lost in the night.  
  
“Sasuke”, she calls without turning around. She knows it’s him. She recognizes his quiet but bubbling presence like a sealed cauldron. Not calm, not quiet, just silent.  
  
He stands beside her.  
  
“It’s cold”.  
  
“Mh”. She doesn’t feel like talking, she who's usually a blabbering mess.  
  
Sasuke seems to like that curious parenthesis of silence. She doesn’t see it, but she senses that he’s smiling just now, and she also senses that if she turned around she would see the usual hard and serious line of his lips, not the smile. Naruko’s imagination paints emotions where they don’t emerge.  
  
Who knows why he has this urge to hide, Naruko thinks.  
  
She holds out her arm, reaches for the cigarette between his lips and takes it away from him. She turns it around between her fingers. Little bearer of death. Promise of hospitals, of asepticity, of tears. She takes a big puff, coughs and swallows all that acrid cloud. She doesn’t like it, but she doesn’t throw it away.  
  
“I didn’t think you smoked”.  
  
“Neither did I”.  
  
“Your brother called”.  
  
Naruko puffs. Naruto’s a nosy nuisance.  
  
“What did he want?”  
  
“Checking how things are going, I guess”. Sasuke is sarcastic, he lays his hand on her bare arm, in one of those shy and rough gestures that he throws like hooks into a mirror of water, waiting to see what fish will bite.  
  
Naruko smiles. She takes his hand, intertwines her fingers with his, and the disparity in size is ridiculous.  
  
“Does he still think we’ll break up?” she asks, without really expecting an answer. She knows that in their circle of friends and acquaintances they talk about them, about the fact that they have been a regular couple for years now. She’s vivacious and careless, always with a glass of wine in her hand and the shadow of a laugh in her blue eyes; he’s irascible and at the same time cold, his face pale and perpetually wrinkled.  
  
  
He’s crippled affectively, that’s what he is. He doesn’t do well in intimate matters, or rather, not always, Naruko reasons. Sometimes they would leave her breathless and make her giggle like a little girl, but always in secret because Sasuke wouldn’t tolerate her laughing at her clumsy attempts. Clumsy but no less adorable.  
  
  
Naruko rests her head on Sasuke’s chest.  
  
Their hearts beat in tandem, one just a little faster than the other. The cigarette ends up on the ground, crushed.  
  
“And what did you say to him?” she whispers.  
  
“To think of his Nara-kun, and not of his favorite little sister”. The tone is too mocking to be polite, it should probably be smoothed.  
  
  
Yes, he’s lame, Naruko thinks, just smiling. But I’m good as a stick.


End file.
